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Amerks fall on Donato's goal in overtime

Ryan Donato scored at 1:09 of overtime Saturday night to give the Providence Bruins a 3-2 victory over the Rochester Americans in their American Hockey League game at Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

The former Harvard star’s fourth goal of the season capped a comeback victory for the Bruins, who trailed 2-0 after two second-period goals by Justin Bailey of the Amerks. One assists on the second Amerks goal went to Sean Malone, who was a teammate of Donato at Harvard. Donato’s father, Ted, is the Harvard coach.

Bailey’s goals were his fourth and fifth of the season, all in the last four games.

The Williamsville native scored at 5:20 and 12:09 of the second. C.J. Smith and Brendan Guhle each picked up his seventh assist of the season on the goal. Lawrence Pilut got his 18th assist and Malone his third on the second goal.

Providence struck on a power-play goal by Jordan Szwarz at 14:32 of the second, Donato and Olivier Galipeau had the assists.

With his sixth of the season, Cameron Hughes tied it for the Bruins at 2:29 of the third with Peter Cehlarik assisting.

Colby Cave picked up his 12th assist on Donato’s winner.

Scott Wedgewood made 27 saves in goal for Rochester. Zane McIntyre also had 27 stops for the Bruins.

Rochester was trying to bounce back from a 9-4 loss on Friday to the Thunderbirds in Springfield, Mass., in the first of a three-game New England road trip. The Amerks moved on to Hartford, Conn., for an afternoon game today at 3 p.m. against the Wolf Pack, the New York Rangers’ AHL affiliate.

Then its back to New York State for the Amerks, who will face the Utica Comets at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester on Friday and the Devils in Binghamton on Saturday.

Rochester (10-4-2) remains in first place in the AHL North Division with a 22-19 lead in points over the second-place Cleveland Monsters (9-7-1).